


Tasting the Light

by RAW_SYNTH3TICA



Series: Transcendence [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Childhood Memories, Dark, M/M, Medical, POV First Person, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 09:33:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6046696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RAW_SYNTH3TICA/pseuds/RAW_SYNTH3TICA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hux's POV - follow up to 'Prologue: Metamorphose' </p><p>After living aboard the Death Star II for so long, General Hux does not know that he had been harboring something illegal, something that could have him executed if only he had known. </p><p>Given 90 hours to prepare for his operation which will ultimately deprive him of emotions and free will, he spends his time wondering what went wrong, where he is headed after his operation & why he was suddenly afflicted by the Light.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tasting the Light

**Author's Note:**

> ALL IS FICTIONAL & NOT MINE. 
> 
> just covering up a plot hole left by 'Prologue: Metamorphose'

Does a droid know that it is defective?  
  
If so, what does the droid Feel about it being destroyed?

Does the droid lay motionless before the machine due to scrap it?

Does the droid remember anything beyond it's own destruction?  
  
Does it think 'This is it. No turning back. End'?

Does the droid know that it's death is the last command it will ever obey?

“I am not a droid. I am not a droid. I am not a droid...” my whisper is nothing more than an exhalation of air, my lungs feel lazy and depleted, almost as if I had resigned myself to my fate – yet, I cannot help wondering of my other life as a droid, surely, a perfectly-functional droid has scanner-audio-relay capabilities; perhaps my tongue will still taste the bland porridge and bread, maybe I will still be allowed to be pressure-touch-sensitive upon my skin – my lips move almost as slowly as my heartbeat inside my tight chest, “I am...”

Not supposed to Feel!

My anger flared, I slap away the ancient instructional booklet detailing a select few intergalactic languages, the time I waste studying the various shouts and differing pitches in cries of the Tusken Raiders is almost as needless as receiving a lost transmission by the Tusken Raiders themselves – time is slipping away no matter how hard I clasp unto the present, the seconds culminating into minutes are sliding past me with each word I memorize, the hours are dwindling from my allotted ninety to eighty-eight and fifty-nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds, my mind is bidding me farewell in the form of deliberate disobedience – my voice looses, I swear every word I know in every language I had studied and still, time does not stop, my heart does not still, my mind does indeed come back only to lend me knowledge of the hundred different ways to say, “Damn it all! Damn it!”

Will I be at all able to retain my memories?

No matter how much they are the bane of my existence aboard the Death Star?

In the orderly insensate state of the droid's verbobrain, will I recall my past on Chandrila?  
  
My parents?

Their affection?

Will I even feel this ultimate Loneliness that I hate with all my being?

Will I feel as if my mind were locked into a vast cold room with low ceilings?

Ultimate catharsis, I will only feel pain where ever Kylo Ren strikes me.

None disturbs my rage, none dares venture into my quarters whilst I stand over my desk, shredding my paddock sheets and causing all sorts of questionable noises that no one would dare investigate – this is Me – confused, angry beyond all thought, a swirling nothingness destroying all in his path, what I was Meant to ultimately be instead of this...in between.

How...-How am I 'defective'?  
  
Have I already not been completing my schedules on time?  
  
Have I already not been demonstrating my competent nature?  
  
Have I already...

Have I...?

“Sir,” an officer stands behind me, I quickly pat down my hair, taming each wayward strand and pulling my suit back into place, my back turns, my arms clasped behind as I address him, “Sir-”

“What!” I shout, shaking loose several strands in my fury, my holler was meant to be a question, but seeing the officer so blank of fear had me less than pleased with the outcome.  
  
“Your prep regimen, sir,” he holds out a change of simple clothing, an almost innocuous bottle of clear gray capsules and a small regimen of four clear bottles no larger than a half an ounce; his hands shake almost to my satisfaction as he trembles out a list of instructions which I will remember and abide if it only means the end of my ongoing discomfort, “Capsules every twenty hours. Liquids every thirty hours.”  
  
In their lesser form, even capsules can hide their true nature as expertly as I have tried hiding my pain, my torn soul, my tortured psyche, I ask as if simply inquiring for the purity of water, “What are the capsules for?”

He looks upon me, his eyebrows raising just a fraction of a centimeter, and yet unable to hide his inquiry as he rights himself automatically – I can only imagine him questioning me and already reading my answers as soon as they are spoken, and I listen intently for his answer lest I find myself on the fast track to the operation room:  
  
“General antiseptic,” he explains as he points to the bottles sloshing liquid in his hands just atop the neatly folded disposable jumpsuit and next to the bottle of capsules, he then thrusts the objects toward me as if I had already refused them and asked for a different color of operation garments, “Your operation gown, sir.”

How does a body develop a 'resistance'?

In fact, how did My body develop this so-called 'Resistance'?  
  
“Under your expertise, officer-” I allow him the moment to bask in his glory, holding the gowns and oral regimen of an officer higher than he, and so I indulge my curious nature and ask whilst emphasizing the 'resistance', “-what exactly does it mean that my body 'resists'?”

“Protocol states that if Any of our bodies develop an immunity of sorts to our orally-taken doses, then we should take precautions against this immunity,” his answers are vague, murky and riddled with half-understood terms, my body begs for rest as does my mind of this stressful topic, yet, it is in my incurable wonder that sparks and hums silently in my ears that I should continue prodding the officer until I am satisfied with the knowledge of the cause of my pending outcome rather than the happenstance of my pending operation, “In other words: you are suffering withdrawal symptoms, General Hux.”

I am master of this body, my mind is the holder and occupant of this body, my lungs do not take in breath unless I will myself to consume oxygen, my eyes do not see unless I will my eyelids to uncover my irises – yet, other than breathing and seeing, Supreme Leader Snoke is the master of all that is Me, my movements, my schedules, my sustenance intake, my labor output, my very Being belongs to the First Order – if my body rebels against my mind, will my psyche follow suit?

Again, there it is, my hands begin to tremble at the small of my back, my hands clasp together tightly to keep my sufferings private in the prying eyes of the officer, I deter his attention and ask, “From the doses?”  
  
“Yes,” his eyes shoot from my shaking arms, his answer comes quickly at the sight of my tensed jaws, an aching pulse races through my face as he continues his explanation, “The doses are a precautionary measure of a Desensitization session if we are more than six hours away from the Death Star and therefore unable to complete a scheduled Desensitization session. Though taking a dose is not usually recommended, it is equal to completing an hour at most of Desensitization for those of a more....obedient nature.”

Not only is my obedience called into question by Kylo Ren, but an officer also?

Am I being openly accused of transgressions I had not committed or am I already labeled as a failed officer?

“Why is it not recommended?” though I keep my voice controlled, I cannot prevent the shaking nor the heat of anger from mingling with my wonder, “Surely, it can be used as a substitute for regular sessions, can't it?”

The capsules themselves had been a godsend these past wretched years of endless campaigns against the Resistance, and yet, I was never once given a second glance as I hoarded the capsules and swallowed them down, alike a slithery little secret, and I quickly logged away my sessions in Desensitization being that my persons was needed elsewhere other than the scheduled hours in the blank cylindrical room, within the gurney's cold clasp.

What had I done?

What has happened to me between the time I counted out the capsules and the ensuing hours after I ingested them?

I recall little as my utilization had doubled and I completed the tasks with half the effort in a fraction of the usual time, everything is a blur; the battles, the campaigns being fought one after the other with hardly a full sleep-cycle in between – surely, these capsules pose no danger, they cannot, they should not, they would otherwise be deemed dangerous if anything disastrous were to occur-

“Not under Your particular instances, sir,” his eyes shoot back and fourth from my shaking arms to my face, as if gauging my pain or my comfort; oddly, his actions only infuriate me more as he tries to keep his words respectfully brief, “It has been brought under our attention after we had performed a more thorough wellness scan of your body that you have a strange anomaly.”

'Anomaly'?

Me, General Hux of the Death Star II, harboring an 'Anomaly'?  
  
“Am I not well enough to go about my usual routine?” I pace forth, matching him step for step until he is caught upon the wall of my private quarters – my head pounds, my eyes sear against the inside of my skull, my agitation matches my groggy psyche as I try to make sense of this mysterious 'anomaly' that prompts my body to reject the oral doses and therefore incites a corrective surgery – our faces nearly touch, I spit each word as calmly as possible, “What Is It?”

A moment too long, a movement wasted, his mouth opens as he drops the bundle of my necessities, the cloth brushes quickly against my uniform and tumbles at my feet – once realizing his error, he motions to drop down and gather up the items before I physically shove him once more on the unforgiving surface of my private quarters' wall, my right arm trembles either from anger or the weak pulse throbbing along my veins, the side-effects of ingesting too many oral doses I presume – he cringes visibly as I kick the items away without once sparing him the reprieve of not burning my gaze unto him.

This is true power – physical might, rather than trapping the energies of the galaxy within a body – where Kylo Ren needs assistance from the universe to push, pull and pollute, I need nothing other than my own body, my own two hands and my legion to exert a more personal approach to pushing, pulling and violating.

I only wish to paint the very horror in Kylo Ren's mind to mirror the terror on the officer's face – so that he will understand my determination, my perfect obedience and superiority over him.  
  
“Energy,” he says, my mind suddenly loses track of my thoughts, the tail-end of my comparisons to Kylo Ren slips away as if I had just awoken from the Desensitization session's stupor, “Just energy.”

The mysterious 'Anomaly' was simply Energy?

Of course everything has energy, being human only means that my body is constantly in motion and Making energy as it is spent, I wonder why it is so significant, my hand twists upon his shoulder, I hiss, “Is that supposed to mean something to Me?”  
  
“Yes,” he gasps, my muscles scream beneath my skin, I ignore the pulsing spikes of pain and listen intently, though more or less coherently, “Oddly enough, we had not been able to detect it before.”

Does he drag on the explanation only to sway my interest or does he not know at all what afflicts me?  
  
I twist all the more brutally, he shouts, and my arms keep to their course.

“Light. Energy from the Light flows through you-” his agonized gasp once more threatens to agitate me, his next words are hurried and low, as if he could lessen the truth by speaking of it quietly, “It originates from your inner core. Not quite noticeable, not strong enough, but it's there. Barely an awakened infant of Light.”

“Get rid of it!” my teeth feel as if they were knitted together behind my lips as I whisper, my left hand slaps unto his other shoulder and I shove him again and again into the wall, my anger overflows my threshold, and I can only clench his shoulders as I growl, “Get it out of me!”

In this way I am imperfect, I have a flaw, I am defective.

“Of course, sir, you just need to be a bit more patient-” he says between whilst I haul him forth and throw him back, his explanation stills my motions, “-your assistant proved a fatal understudy in our latest siege upon the Resistance.”

So then I should suffer the assistant's mistakes?  
  
My assistant, of all the most dedicated, it just Had to be mine that hinders the progress of my well-being.

“All our surgeons are indisposed of for the next eighty hours,” he takes a breath in the time my violence is at once cooled to a simmer rather than an eruption of anger, he says in a manner which suggests fear rather than certainty, “Your time will come, sir.”  
  
“It isn't in my nature to be 'Patient',” my voice leaves my still-clenched teeth, I whip him away from me and toss him in the direction of the exit, he does not move nor does he say a word, he is astonished with motionless fear, so I shout, “Leave!”

“Eighty hours!” I spit out the passing fact as the length of time hits me – I should spend my last coherent and imperfect eighty hours diligently memorizing complex languages, so that my tongue and throat would remember the curl and vibrations which forms a foreign word, I should devote myself to beseeching Supreme Leader Snoke for strength – this time left shall be...utilized...for understanding this energy within me.

 

 

 

> “Hux,” her voice, it was always musical, high and perfectly nuanced in any language, and yet we speak Basic, because it was her first language – though I am small and alike a sprite, she always looks upon me good naturedly as I lug around musty old tomes from the hall of study – I close the tome and stare up at her from my lower vantage, “Hux, what's wrong? Were you lectured by the tutor?”
> 
> Of course, I was always a pupil whom asked 'How' and 'Why'.  
>    
>  “Mother,” I recall the events of the day as I begin my question – it was the day when Jedi Knights and Masters came from the Jedi temple in Coruscant, each Knight and Master examined every child and adolescent for signs of an awakening, I was deemed unextraordinary at the time of my own examination though it would have been an honor if I did hold Some small ability, my father was half-relieved and half-mortified of my low value to the Jedi – I only shared my father's wistful mortification, I asked, “What's wrong with me? Why can't I be Jedi? Is it because I'm not good enough?”
> 
> Perhaps it was the fact that my family and the Republic had a small fortune tied in a binding contract if ever there were children whom were accepted by Jedis, and to become their indentured padawans – being that the First Order was gaining power quickly and also being that Jedi were in short supply – they were being strategically assassinated, even those whom possessed the smallest power to either read minds or levitate objects.
> 
> I could only think hatefully of all the children whom were privy to uncovering the secrets of the universe, simply by meditating, and that my thousands of hours training in both the weaponless arts and meelee attack patterns would never match the might of a young padawan and their lightsaber.
> 
> It was foolish, selfish, and petty, but I wanted to understand everything with an insatiable hunger.  
>    
>  “No, no, little Hux, not at all,” her arms wrap around my small form, she conveys both a loving understanding and warm sympathy within the simple action, I stubbornly try not to melt in her arms and accept her words so easily being that she may try only to placate me rather than comfort, “You, my child, are very special. You have something no other Jedi Knight has.”
> 
> As young as I was, I always wondered why her answer had made me giddy with excitement in the moment it was spoken, and now, her words sting me deep, as if proving my doubts and giving a more tangible reason for the Jedi's refusal to teach me.  
>    
>  “You posses a pure heart,” she says, her right hand encasing my heart; she says what all parents should say to their children, yet I believed her through my scholarly skepticism, “As warm as the sun, and gentle as a breeze, as strong as Phrik ore.”
> 
> I wriggle away from her, I try not to be so easily calmed by her words, yet Most logic dictates that love is not a power nor a gift, it is a state of mind and body borne out of physical familiarity, alike how I am her son and she is my mother – I ask almost pessimistically, “How good is my heart if I can't wield the Force?”
> 
> Love cannot shield a lightsaber, love cannot dissuade the Force, love cannot deflect a blaster's round, love cannot physically heal or cure, love cannot give life – only Acts of Love can cause a physical alteration of all the things I deem powerful or worthy of assertive protection.
> 
> “Oh, my son,” her hand brushes away a long strand from my eyes, I gaze at her and feel at once guilty that I had caused her distress over such a small incident, she says then, “There is so much good in the universe that does not need disturbance by a battle.”
> 
> The only Good I have witnessed thus far seems to be only that the sun rises and the sun sets, both done uneventfully, the sum of a tense peace brought on by the New Republic, I ask, “Even for protection?”  
>    
>  “Especially for protection,” she says, a glimmer of happiness in her eyes as she searches my stern face, in a way that she knows that I am contemplating her answer and carefully making use of her patience with me.
> 
> “Is there even a power I have?” I ask alas, not yet accepting her answer, but only wanting more information to weigh against my mountain of doubt, the pang of jealousy shook me as I had seen hours previously as one by one, students were tested and those with the most noticeable attributes were able to pick up simple objects at will, “Most of the students can float and levitate objects-”
> 
> “Oh, my son. My beautiful, darling son,” her voice hushes me, with all my might, my mind tries to place faith within her words, to overcome the maternal prejudice I have being that I am her child and that she may be speaking out of affection rather than fact, the intricacies of her words are simple and yet a maddening riddle still, “If only you can see that loving with your whole being is a power that can rival the destruction borne out of hate.”
> 
> Once more, her green eyes search my own, I do not absorb her explanation nor do I feel the need to refute her one-sided views of me – put more simply, I have given up even trying to understand What is wrong with me if ever there was a tactile How I came to be at odds with myself.
> 
> “It can heal and overcome the most merciless of souls, the coldest of minds and birth seeds of affection from the hardest of hearts,” she does not try attempting to convey her sympathy physically, she only leans forward and whispers a kiss atop my head, a dampness patters atop me as if it were rain and once more, I am ashamed for being the cause of her anguish, “Don't ever change, Hux. Don't ever rid yourself of this one gift you possess.”
> 
> I try, with all the little bits of strength I possess, I attempt to overcome my uncertainty and fear for the future – what the vast galaxy holds for such a small life form as myself, how I may ever survive in a place where only power and domination is quickly crushing the hard-won peace and tranquility of the Republic – in the tension of the moment, I word a vow to my mother, a vow that I will unknowingly break just hours later when we are caught unawares by the First Order during a vacation to Coruscant.
> 
> My body scoots to her warmth, her familiar perfume, to bask against the body that was once my home, I swear upon my parents' life in the faintest whisper so that only we will bear witness to my pledge, “I promise, mother, I won't ever, ever...”
> 
>  

“...Change,” my voice has changed, my throat is enclosed, as if I had swallowed an entire planet and am now choking as a result – hot, itchy trails cascade down my face, across my cheeks and down my chin, suddenly boneless, I fall against the wall, my arms shaking as I pull off my leather gloves and observe my downfall, “What has become of me?”

I brush the quickly-cooling trails and scrutinize my offending fingers for what evidence they bear of my transgression, I am hit by an emotion more than a hundred times its strength as I had remembered – Tears, as old heavy and bitter as my broken promise – realizing so, I lose myself, the sorrow overpowers me, it wrenches me and wrings my insides, as if every vein and artery were bleeding my body with thick salty tears, my voice holds no beauty, no song of praise, no language, and yet, I know in my heart that every species in existence can understand that I weep from a wound inflicted by love and poisoned by hate.

An act of love is what kept me alive, it is the reason I still breathe, not because Phasma had found a potential student or because Supreme Leader Snoke had knowledge of my determination – I am alive because my parents had made sure to broadcast that I was a Senator's son during the siege upon the vessel, they already knew their fate and yet strove to make me visible.

It is the sin of the parent if their child is born defective, it is the sin of genetics if the child is born abnormally, it is the child's sin if in later in life they come upon their flaw – I suffer none of the three attributes, yet I suffer still.

If anything, I wish that this sorrow will be replaced quickly and orderly, for I cannot bear this excruciation, this torture which is never to leave me unless I am successfully operated upon or obliterated.

My body is weak from both the withdrawal symptoms and from the chaos in my head; as if in a memorized dream, I stagger toward my private lavatory, my arms shake as does my legs, I peer down at my tear-streaked uniform where the liquids turn my officer's jacket a pallid gray, I glance up and nearly jump away – my eyes swim in a lake of red and so I brush my hair aside in a flash, my swollen tear-ducts leak so profusely that I am tempted to call in an officer to have them steal away a hooded cloak from Kylo Ren's private quarters, my cheekbones have lost their softness and are more angular, more long and lined by expressions of utter contempt, my skin, once rosy and dewy was now as pale and grotesque as frosted plastiglass – yet my tears seem as if to beautify my face, to show that I am alive.

“What is to become of me?” I ask myself, my image mimicks me perfectly, the movement of my swollen lips and the twitch of my eye as another tear slips right past the barricade of my lower eyelashes, though I know now that I am Willingly betraying my promise once more, I cannot help the words as they slide past my lips with my mirrored image as witness, “Your servant implores you, Supreme Leader Snoke, give me the strength to quell this...abomination within me.”

How will I know if and when Supreme Leader Snoke lends his hand unto my unsteady own?  
  
Do I truly Want this suffering to end, or am I relieved that I can still Feel?

Do I still want my body to remember this pain long after a verbobrain has replaced my own?

Or does my heart yearn to feel something Else?  
  
Something less painful?  
  
Something forbidden?

Something absolute...

anything actual...

Am I at able to Feel or Convey an emotion so dormant and prohibited?

**Author's Note:**

> this took a while, excuse the lateness... q(=_=)p


End file.
